September 2.0

 Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

For everyone who wonders about the Great Unknown, who questions, who fears, who grieves, whose heart needs healing after a terrible year of loss for so many people around the world, this book is just the salve the doctor ordered. I’ve already preordered my hard copy for the Sept. 21 pub date. In Klune's latest book following up his huge hit 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘦𝘢, his main character Wallace 'wakes' to find himself...dead. And let's be real, Wallace was an ass - a hateful, selfish, greedy ass in his former living self. The characters we meet help Wallace onto his next journey, and I suspect you’ll fall as madly in love with Nelson, Hugo, and Mei as I did. (And the dog, Apollo, broke me in beautiful wonderful ways.) I haven't wept over the final pages of a book like this since Dumbledore died (HP) and the Thirteen crashed into the mountain (ToG). I mean, seriously. My heart grew three sizes in the 24 hours it took to read this book and I want to buy a copy to shove in everyone's hands. I loved this book a ridiculous amount. "𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦." "𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥?" "𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦."

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons

Don’t compare this one to Ove - seriously. Eudora deserves her own credit, not to be shared with anyone, trust me. This book brought me SNAP out of my reading slump! It is the story of an 85 year old woman who is tired of life, who wants to go out on her own terms, so she contacts a Swiss company about assisted suicide. Thus begins the story of Eudora Honeysett, a woman who never married or had children, who lived through the Blitz, who had complicated relationships with family members, who is unfailingly polite, kind, intelligent, and thoughtful. I fell madly in love with Eudora and I think you will as well! Highly recommend the audio as the British accent is perfection and the voices for the delightful characters are just that…Dee-Lightful.

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Honest review ahead, as always…I hoped this one would save my September but alas, it joined the other disappointing reads of the month. The one victory for me was that I did not DNF it, as much as I wanted to. Yes, the writing is beautiful but…there was too much of it for me. Long paragraphs of verbose description comprised the majority of the story. The characters were plentiful…as in, I needed a cast list to keep track of everyone. And with all the descriptive writing, I could never really find the depth of each man in order to care about them. And yes, they were all men. The few women in the story were mostly bystanders, never fully fleshed out. Admittedly, I love strong female leads (ie Toni Morrison, Brit Bennett, Alice Walker, etc) so this book with its male-centric focus was less enjoyable for me. The neighborhood of Harlem is truly the main character and Whitehead fully develops Harlem so that we hear the pulse, we see the heart, we sense the anger and frustration from the long arms of historic racism; that is the genius of his writing.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

“It’s about what happens when gullibility and fear meet greed and power…People will believe anything. Doesn’t make them stupid, just desperate.” I was so excited to pick up the latest LP book after reading all 16 books in the series since January 2020 - I was sure it would lift me out of my reading slump. It was…fine. Things I Loved: The characters - it was like being back with family. The themes of compassion, strength, love - LP is always powerful weaving those into a mystery and she uses those well in the trauma of the pandemic. Things I Did Not Love: use of pandemic being magically over due to vaccines (cause that didn’t  happen thanks to anti-vaxxers) - just seemed off to me (I also suspect she thought it WOULD be over when book went to print!) Also, mystery was intriguing but honestly, took too long for the big reveal - got a bit repetitious for the first time for me. Was it worth it? Hell yeah - I mean, I adore Armand and his gang. And maybe I’m being too picky? Or maybe much of it was too close to home? Ultimately, this one was good, but not great for me. 

No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield

A dead body, the town pariah, a nasty privileged woman, a nosy policeman…a good mix of characters to pull me into this thriller. Let’s be honest - most thrillers these days I find fairly unthrilling, but this one had me from page one. First - the victim is quite compelling. Raised in the town junkyard by a single, alcoholic father, bullied by other children, vilified by the townspeople as she grew up, Lizzie is a complicated woman. And the rich woman, Adrienne, who rents Lizzie’s lake house? Wow. Just wow. She is the poster child for White-Rich-Privileged-Entitled. After her husband bilks millions from innocent investors, the couple is cut off from society but heck, who cares as long as they still have their own money?! This book has some jaw dropping twists, some implausibilities that I could easily ignore in the name of entertainment, and some compelling characters. 

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

Yikes…I can do dark but this book takes the concept of “dark” to a new galaxy, at least for me. I really liked the concept: missing sister from twenty years ago, while story follows the two other sisters and the fall out in their lives. It IS a page turner with crazy plot twists buuuuut the violence and sexual deviancy was just too much for me. Literally gave me nightmares. Yes, I finished it but felt like I needed a really long excruciatingly hot shower to cleanse my soul. 

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban

You know those books that have a really cool sounding plot, but don’t have the most stellar reviews? And then you pick it up thinking “Nah, I’m sure some readers are just too picky!” Well… I’m hear to say you all were right about this one. Good grief, what a waste of time. And I love YA - mysteries, romance, fantasy. A good YA gives kids hope as well as solid entertainment. In the case of this book, it gives teens sexist stereotypes (“Boys, you save the girls - they’re too weak and stupid to do anything!”), implausible plot twists (everyone’s gonna believe the “pick someone to die or you all die” scholarship dinner?), and poorly handles online bullying and suicide (I found it lacking in authentic information and solutions). So yeah, in this case, the reviews were accurate. 

The Second Mrs. Astor by Shana Abe

This book had me at “Titanic;” Yes, I loved the movie years ago and I do love a good historical fiction book. If you like romance, a story people with Uber rich, Uber privileged Gilded Era characters, and some small bits of history thrown in, this book may satisfy you. For me, I wanted more…more details on the wild crush of press surrounding the second Mrs. Astor, more on who this woman was, more on the Astors themselves, and definitely more on the Titanic itself (that was just the final 40% of the book)Lots of description of parties, of clothing, of fancy food - I think my taste just ruins to more character depth and history. But it was a nice palate cleanser after a dark and gritty thriller:)